


Blackbird

by hystericalzombie



Category: Hat Films - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Drowning Mention, Grief, M/M, Sad with a Happy Ending, Suicide, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:40:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5945965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hystericalzombie/pseuds/hystericalzombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ghosts are better left where they are. Unseen, and forgotten</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blackbird

**Author's Note:**

> i know i should be working on wolf and demon, but ive currently hit a block and i cant figure out how to proceed. so have a horrendously sad but with a happy ending fic, based off of Blackbird by Sam Lee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDQMVFgRv10

Alex saw things. Things he didn't understand. Things no one else saw.  
He was 6 when he saw the man in his father's field. He had called out to the man, asking him what his business was. And the man turned around and Alex saw.  
His mother called out to him and he spun around, as if he had been caught doing something naughty. When he looked over his shoulder, the man was gone.  
But Alex saw.

\---Alex's parents were worried that Alex didn't have any friends. All the other children, they noticed and the other children's parents noticed, stayed well away from him. As if he was something to be left unacknowledged.  
That is, until one day, when a sailor and his son came to the small village by the sea. The sailors son took a liking to Alex, and soon the went everywhere together. _Joined at the hip_ , his mother said.---Alex kept quiet about the things he saw. He never told anyone, not his mother, not his father, not his sister, not _anyone_.  
He didn't want to make his family upset. But, most of all, he didn't want to be sent away.  
He didn't tell the sailors son, Ross, either.  
Well, until they were 12, that is.---They had been sitting in the old tree out the back of Alex's home, chatting about everything and nothing. Alex's mother was in the village with his sister Lily, selling apple's from the orchard. His father was out in one of the fields, preparing the soil for the seeds.  
The man was standing about 40 or so metres from them.  
Alex watched him out of the corner of his eye, remembering previous experience of when he let Them know he could see.  
Ross sat opposite him, all dark hair and pale skin, watching Alex carefully. "What are you looking at?", Ross had asked, startling Alex so much he almost fell out of the tree.  
"What?" He had blurted, surprised to be caught.  
Ross looked out at where he noticed Alex had been looking, and repeated his question. Ross watched Alex go pale, and his hands begin to shake. "Not so loud!" he had said, and Ross upon noticing his friend's distress began to feel alarmed.  
"What is the matter? Are you okay?"  
"Just- please, keep the noise down, okay?" Alex had seemed to shrink in on himself, and Ross had begun to feel more worried. "Alright, it's okay. I'll keep quiet, just tell me what's wrong."  
Alex's hands had begun to twist in his lap, and Ross on instinct reached out to still them.  
"I- I see... things. Things I... shouldn't be able to see." Alex said in a hushed tone, so quiet Ross had to lean in to hear better.  
"What kind of things?" Ross asked, curiosity plain on his face. Alex looked straight into his eyes, searching for any hint of mockery, any sign of dishonesty. He nodded to himself, lost in thought.  
Alex had looked back out into the field, and the man had turned to watch the two boys in the tree. "I see things that used to be. That were alive." He turned to look Ross in the eyes, and Ross saw the trust, the fear, the loneliness that was in Alex's.  
"I see people that aren't there anymore."---Years passed, and the two boys grew into men, and grew closer than before. Alex worked on his father's farm, and Ross helped his father fish, and many of the young ladies of the village eyed the two, but Alex never noticed. Ross always pointed it out to him, but he never gave them a second glance.  
He only had eyes for his best friend.---It was the storm that did it. Alex could see it coming in from the farm, and his father looked at it with concern. "Alex," he had said, and Alex dragged his gaze away from the storm to see his father looking at him.  
"Did Ross go out to sea today?" his father asked gently, and Alex froze for a moment.  
He swallowed and nodded, and they both looked back to the storm.---It felt like the storm lasted days, when in fact it only lasted one. The sky grew so dark it felt like a never-ending night, the people praying that they would survive the howling wind and the lashing rain that they barred their windows and tied their doors against.  
Alex prayed for Ross.---The next time Alex saw him, Ross was standing on the beach, watching the weak sunrise after the storm. Alex said nothing.  
"Alex! Now's no the time to be daydreaming!" Lily yelled after him, and a lead weight dropped in his stomach.  
"Alex?" Lily called again, and Ross turned to look at him with the same, sad eyes he wished he couldn't see.---He went back the next day, at sunrise.  
Ross was standing amongst the waves again, silently, so still he could of been mistaken for a statue.  
"Ross?" Alex said quietly.  
He looked up and smiles sadly. "Alex." Ross says, and Alex feels his heart break.  
"What happened?" Alex whispers, his hands clenching by his sides.  
Ross frowns, and looks back out to the sea. "Dad and I went out. We didn't realise a storm was coming till it was on us. The waves were huge, bigger than anything I've ever seen. And the _wind_ , hell, that storm was something to be reckoned with. It was near its end, when I finally got flung from the boat." Ross went quiet for a moment, eyes going distant.   
"I didn't stand a chance."---Alex knew he shouldn't go back to the beach. To Ross. He knew he shouldn't, but he wanted to.  
After that day on the beach, Alex had retreated into himself. Outwardly, he carried on. His parents began talking to him about when he should start making his own family, about finding himself a wife. He just nodded and said nothing.  
To Alex, though, he was drifting away inside his head. He felt like he was an observer, watching someone else have these conversations, working, 'carrying on'.---Two weeks later, he went back.  
"I thought you had forgotten about me." Ross joked, smiling although his eyes remained sad.  
"Everyone is trying to make me. Forget about you, that is." Alex didn't look at him, staring out towards the merciless ocean.  
Ross goes quiet, and eventually Alex turns to look at him. Ross looks him in the eyes, and says "Are you trying to forget me?"  
Alex huffed a laugh.  
"I couldn't if I tried."---No matter how he tried, Alex kept going back to the beach.  
His parents kept going on about families and wives and he couldn't stand it. He noticed that when he didn't pay attention when he was walking to clear his head, he would automatically go back there.  
Every time he saw Ross, his heart broke all over again.  
A month after Ross died, then Alex realised that he had fallen in love with the sailor's son.  
That he had fallen for him, long long long before the Storm, before the world had taken his best friend away from him.  
He realised he didn't want to leave him, again.---"Alex, you need to stop."  
Alex looked up to Ross, with his sad blue eyes.  
"What?" Alex frowned, confused by his friend's statement.  
"You need to move on, Alex. Live your life, start a fami-"  
"Stop." Ross looked at Alex, startled into silence.  
"I don't want to start a family. I don't want to get married, or have kids, or any of that. I..."  
Alex took a shaky breath, collecting himself before he took this step.  
"I love you. I've always loved you. That's why I never looked at any of the village girls. I was never interested in them."  
Ross looked at him, shocked.  
"Alex..." Alex looked up.  
"You can't love me." Ross had whispered, and Alex's heart broke.  
"Why?" He felt like he couldn't breathe anymore.  
"Because I love you too."  
Confusion had filled Alex's eyes. "Why can't..."  
"Because I'm dead, Alex. You are alive. You can't linger for someone who is dead. You need to be with someone alive, be that a woman or a man. Just not me." Ross' voice had fallen to a whisper, and all Alex could hear was the waves crashing against the shore.---Alex sat by his bedroom window, in the middle of the night.  
The man he had first seen, stood in the field. Alex was sure he was getting closer each time he looked.  
A thought came to his mind, and he stood up.  
He grabbed the lantern, pulled on his boots, and went outside.  
The night air was cold and the wind played with his hair. Alex walked up to the man in the field, while he watched the farmer's son.  
"Who are you?" Alex asked, and the man looked up. The man was a little shorter than Alex, though he could see that the man was strong in life. He had the same startling blue eyes as himself, he noted with shock in his veins.  
"I am your uncle." The man had said. Alex swallowed carefully.  
"How did you die?" He asked, a small tremor in his voice. He glanced back to the silent house behind him, praying silently that no one could see him.  
"I was killed while trying to protect your mother, before she was married."  
"Who killed you? Do you know?" Alex's voice had fallen to a whisper, the wind stealing his words.  
"Your father did." And the weak candle in his lantern blew out, and Alex was left standing alone in the darkened field.---

 

An argument with his parents, about family and wives, ended with Alex leaving the house, stalking away with rage simmering in his veins.

As he walks away, he feels his anger leaving him, blown away by the wind.

He slows as the moon begins to rise, lighting his path.

The sound of waves hitting the shore, the smell of sea salt in the wind greets him as he makes his way to somewhere that terrified him ever since he was a little boy.

He sees the path begin to trail away, grass and wildflowers hiding the worn mud.

And he stops at the end, feels the looming in his gut as he looks out over the sea, the steep drop just a step away.

Alex sits carefully, listening to the wind rushing in his ears, the white surf of the waves lit up by the weak moonlight.

He isn't sure how long he stays there, thinking.

Just breathing, listening, waiting.

He wonders about the future. 

About what his life would of been like if the Storm never happened, or if Ross and his father never went out that day.

Would he have let himself get married? To one of the village women? Would he have taken over the farm, with Ross at his side?

He doesn't know. And, he realizes, he never will.

 

\---

 

Alex stirs, still sitting on the cliff.

For a moment, he's blinded by the rising sun. The sky behind him is a haze of indigo and deep blue, and in front is a mess of pinks and golds and reds and blues. He feels stunned by the brilliance of the dawn, and his heart clenches.

He stands unsteadily, his legs trembling after being in one position for the entire night.

Ross' words come back to him, about them never being able to love, and he hugs himself tightly.

Tears flow down his cheeks unbidden, and everything he remembers about Ross rises to the forefront of his mind.

He remembers running in his father's field with Ross, playing games of chase and tag, climbing the trees together in the orchard, helping Ross' father with the fish he had caught. He remembers Ross helping him with the fields as they grew older, with Alex glancing up to see the shape of Ross' back against his sweat slicked shirt, and Ross catching him and giving him a cheeky wink.

He remembers Ross holding him close after Alex had gotten a bad scare from one of Them, the way Ross' arms felt around him, the quiet strength that no one seemed to notice in them, the way he smelt of sea salt and the sun, his hand rubbing his back comfortingly.

Alex's heart shattered with each memory, of Ross' blinding grin, of his beautiful blue eyes.

He looked up at the sun, and he knew.

Alex couldn't do this anymore.

He took one step forward.

And he was falling, falling, falling, fall-

 

\---

 

When Alex opened his eyes, he was standing on the beach.

The sun was rising, a different one from the one he fell to.

"Hey you."

Alex looks to his right, and sees Ross walking towards him.

"Hey." He whispers back, and he hesitates. "I'm sorry." is all he says, and Ross shakes his head slightly.

"I would of done the same, if it was the other way around." Ross shrugs slightly,  before giving him that blinding grin Alex loves so much.

"I'm afraid you're kind of stuck with me." Alex says, a smirk on his face.

"Mmm. Can't say I mind." Ross slings his arm around his shoulders, and kisses him, soft and sweet.

"Can't say I mind at all." Alex grins at him, and holds him close.

 

Fin


End file.
